


Approach with caution

by theflyinganonymouse



Category: VIXX
Genre: Gen, Magic AU, Rating is for swearing, but also a college au, but mostly poor taekwoon, lol, poor hakyeon, poor taekwoon, theyre all little shits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 08:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15214679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theflyinganonymouse/pseuds/theflyinganonymouse
Summary: They all find it funny when Taekwoon gets stuck in his cat form.Or at least they do once they’ve worked out what’s going on. It takes them a few days of Taekwoon skulking around the apartment, knocking things off the counter or the table and flicking his tail in annoyance before someone finally notices.





	Approach with caution

**Author's Note:**

> For the magic square in Fantastia fic bingo.
> 
> Hope you guys like it!

They all find it funny when Taekwoon gets stuck in his cat form.

Or at least they do once they’ve worked out what’s going on. It takes them a few days of Taekwoon skulking around the apartment, knocking things off the counter or the table and flicking his tail in annoyance before someone finally notices.

“What’s wrong, Taekwoon?” Hakyeon asks, jerking back from attempting to pet him when Taekwoon lashes out with his claws. “I’ve not seen you in person for a while. Why haven’t you turned back?”

Taekwoon just stares at him, looking unimpressed.

“Can you turn back?” Hakyeon asks.

Taekwoon looks away and Hakyeon recognises defeat, even on a cat, when he sees it. It’s a funny expression on a feline though he decides not to point that out to Taekwoon. He has sharp claws and has no qualms about using them.

He leaves a message on the group chat calling everyone home as soon as possible for an emergency meeting and he immediately gets a response back from Wonshik saying that finding out who ate his ice cream is not an emergency and he’ll be home at seven as normal.

Hakyeon checks the freezer and finds his ice cream is, in fact gone, and he curses under his breath.

“At least I know it wasn’t you this time.” He mutters to Taekwoon only to have the cat turn his back on him and walk away.

 _That’s second on the agenda._ He sends back. _We need to talk about Taekwoon._

That gets him promises of being home as soon as possible but its still after nine before they’re all gathered in the living room. Hakyeon thinks it’s a pretty poor showing considering he’d first messaged just before two but he decides not to mention it for the moment. It’s perfect material to blackmail them with at a later date.

“What’s going on?” Sanghyuk, the last to arrive, asks. “Is Taekwoon moving out?”

“Finally.” Jaehwan says with a roll of his eyes. “All he does is lounge about and eat our food. He hasn’t done the dishes in over two weeks.”

“But it was your turn to do the dishes.” Hongbin points out. “It says so on the rota.”

Jaehwan gives him a blank look, “we have a rota?”

There’s a slight pause as they let that particular bit of news sink in before Wonshik asks, “can I have his room?” 

“Taekwoon isn’t moving out!” Hakyeon throws his hands in the air. “Where on earth did you hear that?”

“Just a rumour.” Sanghyuk shrugs, his feigned air of nonchalance looking decidedly shady. “One I definitely didn’t start.”

“He’s stuck.” Hakyeon tells them as Taekwoon slinks into the room from the direction of the bedrooms. “He can’t change back.”

Taekwoon jumps onto the coffee table and his tail twitches, clearly annoyed. Hongbin, either not realising or not caring, reaches forward and pets him on the head. Hakyeon winces in anticipation of the younger being scratched but Taekwoon does nothing but stiffen.

“Oh my god.” Sanghyuk says. “That’s hilarious.”

“Are you stuck as a fluffy kitty?” Hongbin teases and this time he does get scratched. “Ow!”

“Don’t get mad, Taekwoonie.” Jaehwan singsongs. “It’s not a big deal. You make a much prettier cat than you do a person. I know I can’t be the only one who prefers you like this. Maybe it’s meant to be?”

Taekwoon knocks over Hakyeon’s glass of water and Jaehwan has to leap at the coffee table to grab his phone before it gets wet.

“How long have you been stuck?” Wonshik asks.

Taekwoon jumps onto his lap and Wonshik immediately flinches away but all Taekwoon does is bat his paw against his face.

“Six?” Wonshik raises an eyebrow. “Six what? Hours? Days?”

Taekwoon bats at his face twice more.

“Six days?”

Taekwoon blinks.

“Wow.” Jaehwan says. “I hadn’t even noticed.”

Hakyeon looks around the room and sees the guilt he’s feeling mirrored on the faces of the others. It appears none of them had.

The feeling doesn’t last long.

“I call dibs on his room.” Wonshik says. “If, you know, he never turns back.”

It’s a stupid thing to say with Taekwoon right there on his lap and he must realise this because he jumps and pushes the cat off his lap before Taekwoon has chance to react. 

“You’ll turn back.” Hakyeon assures him as Taekwoon retakes his seat on the coffee table, his body tense and his fur ruffled. “We’ll sort something out.”  

“How?” Sanghyuk asks. “It’s not like any of us know any decent magic.”

They’d all taken the mandatory classes in high school and then another couple when they’d started college but none of them had really shown any great talent with it. Only Taekwoon had any real knowledge and was the only one out of the six of them who continued on with his magical studies beyond what was necessary. Hakyeon had always thought it was a cop out on Taekwoon’s part, being a magical creature meant that it all came quite naturally to him. Unlike math. Taekwoon was terrible at math.

“We’ll figure something out.” Hakyeon says, trying his best to appear positive.

Taekwoon doesn’t look appeased but Hakyeon can’t really tell how much of that is just his natural expression- even as a cat Taekwoon has a spectacular resting bitch face.

Hakyeon clears his throat, that particular discussion over for the moment, “and now onto more pressing matters... which one of you fuckers ate my ice cream?”

His question is met with a round of groans.

The argument that follows – if it can be called an argument, Wonshik’s weak defence that all food should be clearly labelled if the owner doesn’t want it to be eaten by someone else is quickly and heatedly shut down by the others – distracts Hakyeon from the Taekwoon problem. He goes straight to his room once he’s finished laying into Wonshik and he doesn’t see Taekwoon again for the rest of the day.

He’s up early the next morning for a 9am lecture and he rolls his eyes when he sees Taekwoon’s bedroom door cracked open when he’s on his way back from his shower. He knows it hadn’t been open when he’d gone to bed the night before so he knows someone, likely Wonshik, had been in to scope the place out. He closes the door with a quiet huff.

It’s Wednesday which means it’s a long day: his morning filled with back to back lectures followed by a two hour seminar in the afternoon and dance practice in the evening. He’s exhausted when he gets home – more than a little drunk, too, because he and some of the others had gone for drinks at one of the local bars despite how disgustingly sweaty they had all been after dance practice – so he goes straight to bed.

He can lie in on a Thursday so he does, not getting up until after ten, and he takes his time in the shower knowing that the others are all out at class. He finds an untouched plate of tuna on the kitchen counter when he goes to get his breakfast – _lunch_ – and he feels a pang of guilt- he hadn’t thought about Taekwoon since the morning before. He opens his mouth to call for him but is distracted by his phone ringing. He’s out of the apartment in the next five minutes, all thoughts of Taekwoon forgotten as he sprints to the studio for a dance practice he has absolutely no memory of scheduling and is already twenty minutes late for.

It’s a long day and he’s not feeling all that great from the night before but it’s bearable because in the group chat Hongbin recounts in painstaking detail how Jaehwan had utterly embarrassed himself in front of his crush on the way to class that morning. He joins in with the teasing and that helps make the day better. Mocking Jaehwan has always helped lift Hakyeon’s spirits.

It’s early evening when he gets back to the apartment. He pushes open the door only to see a black flash of fur sprint past his ankles and down the hall.

He blinks.

“Hakyeon!” Jaehwan shouts from inside the apartment. “You idiot! Why did you let him out?”

“I didn’t- _fuck_.” Hakyeon stares down the hall but Taekwoon has already disappeared to god knows where. “What does he think he’s doing?”

Even with all the laws that have been passed, it’s still not exactly safe for shifters to walk the streets in their animal forms without either their ID collar or a human to supervise them.

“He’ll be okay.” Sanghyuk shrugs from his seat on the sofa, not even looking up from his phone. “There are doors to get both in and out of the stairwell and the elevator- he’s not going to get very far. Cats don’t have opposable thumbs, remember?”

“I’m not worried about him getting outside.” Jaehwan says. “He makes a fucking adorable cat. What if the girls on the fifth floor find him and decide to adopt him?”

“I’m sure his face will scare them off.” Sanghyuk says with another shrug.

Hakyeon steps into the apartment but leaves the door ajar behind himself, “I’ll leave the door open for when he decides to come back. Why did he want to get out anyway?”

Jaehwan points down the hall to where all the bedrooms are, not saying a word, and Hakyeon cautiously walks in the direction he’s pointing.

“What’s going on?” He asks when he finds Wonshik and Hongbin standing at the threshold of Taekwoon’s room looking in. “You’re still not after his room, are you?”

“No, we’ve already decided between us that Sanghyuk is getting it.” Hongbin says with a little shake of his head.

“He can keep it.” Wonshik mutters.

“There’s been an incident.” Hongbin informs him. “Someone shut Taekwoon in his room- we think since Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.”

At the pointed look Hongbin gives him when he says ‘someone’ he knows that they’ve decided he’s to blame. He frowns and opens his mouth, ready to defend himself, before he remembers he had in fact pulled Taekwoon’s door shut on Wednesday morning. He abruptly closes his mouth again.

“Go on.” He says after a minute.

“Yeah, well, he couldn’t get out and-.”

“We know it was you who locked him in his room.” Wonshik interrupts. “You’re cleaning it up.”

Hakyeon wrinkles his nose but relents, “fine.”

It’s a quick job, thankfully, and not even the worst thing he’s ever cleaned up – he thinks back to the night Jaehwan got black out drunk the year before and shudders – but, still, Hakyeon understands how mortified Taekwoon must feel. He’d be surprised if they ever see him again.

They eat dinner and after Hongbin puts on a movie that none of them watch. Hakyeon begins to get uneasy as midnight approaches with no sign of Taekwoon and, with a bit of prodding, he has the others search their apartment block while he sits in the hall by their front door and taps away at the laptop balanced precariously on his knees, drawing up a missing pet poster all the while knowing full well that Taekwoon would cause him serious bodily harm if he ever found out that Hakyeon had referred to him as a pet.

“We’ve searched the whole building and there’s no sign of him anywhere.” Wonshik tells him when he and the others arrive back at their front door. “And it isn’t like we can go knocking on people’s doors- it’s the middle of the night.”

“I bet the girls on the fifth floor have him.” Jaehwan scrunches his nose.

“RIP Taekwoon.” Hongbin shrugs as he disappears into the apartment.

“How did he get off our floor?” Sanghyuk asks no one in particular. “Cats don’t have opposable thumbs.”

“You guys go to bed.” Hakyeon says. “I’ll keep watch in case he comes back.”

He’s surprised that no one argues with him but then, he reasons, they always have been disloyal.

Morning comes with no sign of Taekwoon and Hakyeon eventually retreats back into their apartment in defeat, his body stiff and his brain numb with exhaustion. He collapses onto the sofa and passes out until about an hour before noon, the noise the others are making becoming too much for him to continue to sleep peacefully.

“Finally.” Sanghyuk says as he blinks awake. “We thought you had died. Wonshik was starting to write your eulogy and everything.”

Hakyeon wipes the drool from his face, “what?”

“It’s got a sick beat.” Wonshik tells him. “Likely to be my best work yet.”

“You were going to rap my eulogy?” Hakyeon asks, his brain finally catching up. “That’s… disappointing.”

“Rude!” Jaehwan calls from somewhere in the kitchen.

Wonshik shrugs, nonplussed, “I’m going to write it anyway, just out of spite.”

“Good for you.” Hongbin pats his head as he walks passed, a stack of papers balanced precariously in his non-patting hand.

Hakyeon blinks.

“What’s going on?” He asks. “What’s with all the papers?”

There’s another stack on the coffee table and a third tucked under Sanghyuk’s arm.

Wonshik grabs a sheet from pile on the coffee table and passes it to him, “wanted posters.”

“Not wanted, _missing_.” Jaehwan corrects him, coming to stand behind them. “We put them together while you were sleeping. They look good, don’t they?”

Hakyeon takes the paper from Wonshik and Taekwoon’s grumpy cat face stares up at him.

‘Missing.’ The poster reads. ‘If found, approach with caution.’

Underneath there’s multiple drawings of Taekwoon the cat with his claws and his fangs bared.

Hakyeon wells up.

“Are you crying?” Sanghyuk asks.

“I told you he wouldn’t like it.” Hongbin calls from near the entrance.

Wonshik scoffs, “its miles better than the one you put together.”

“It’s nothing.” Hakyeon dabs at his eyes and clears his throat. “I just didn’t think you guys cared.”

“Of course we do.” Sanghyuk rolls his eyes. “I can’t officially claim Taekwoon’s room as my own until Taekwoon’s been officially missing for two weeks. You know the rules.”

“It’s in all our best interests really that we start the clock ticking sooner rather than later.” Wonshik agrees.

“Assholes.” Hakyeon mutters.

He leaves the others to go off and canvas the building while he keeps an eye on the cracked open door to their apartment. They’re gone for over an hour but return empty handed, not a single poster left between the five of them, and Hakyeon begins to fear the worst.

“Do you think we should call the police?” He asks.

“What are they going to do that we haven’t?” Hongbin asks.

“I don’t know.”

Sanghyuk shrugs, “give it until morning. He might turn up.”

There’s the distant rumble of thunder then and Hakyeon takes it as an ominous sign even if no one else does. He’s always been more superstitious than the others.

They order in because they don’t have any clean plates – Jaehwan still hasn’t done the dishes even if he now knows where the rota is kept – and they turn the lights off and light candles as the sky darkens outside and rains pelts the windows. It’s a tradition they’ve had for as long as they’ve known each other even if none of them can remember how it started.

“Let’s watch a scary movie.” Sanghyuk suggests because Taekwoon isn’t there to say no.

Hakyeon, knowing he’s outnumbered without Taekwoon, agrees and he and Wonshik press close to one another at one end of the sofa, huddled together under everyone’s favourite blanket. The movie makes them all tense and the thunder and lightning of the storm outside doesn’t help. Hakyeon’s pleased to see even Sanghyuk jump at the scary bits.

About halfway through, Hakyeon begins to hear some tapping. He listens intently for a couple of minutes, his body tense, trying to work out where the noise is coming from.

“What?” Wonshik asks when he sits up, pushing the blanket from his shoulders.

“Can’t you hear that?”

“I can’t hear anything.” Wonshik says but he looks spooked.

“Pause the movie.” Hakyeon says.

Sanghyuk snorts but does as he’s told, “is this meant to be some kind of joke?”

It’s Hongbin that shushes him, “I can hear it, too.”

The five of them sit shock still for nearly a minute and listen to the incessant tapping.

“Where is it coming from?” Jaehwan asks.

“It sounds like glass.” Hakyeon says.

“The window.” Hongbin and Jaehwan say at the same time.

The five of them turn to look at the window just as lightening lights up the sky outside and they see two wide, yellow eyes looking them.

Wonshik screams.

Hakyeon clutches at his chest, his heart pounding against his ribs, and it takes him one long moment to work out just exactly what he’s looking at.

“Taekwoon!” He’s on his feet in an instant, racing for the window.

It takes three of them to push the window up enough that Taekwoon can squeeze in through the gap. The gust of wind that follows him into the apartment is enough to extinguish all of their candles and they are plunged into darkness.

“Nobody move.” Hakyeon says. “I don’t want anyone to step on Taekwoon.”

They get the window closed again and Jaehwan and Hongbin use the torches on their phones to illuminate the room enough that they can see each other and, more importantly, Taekwoon who is sprawled on the floor, his chest rising and falling rapidly as if he’s just run a marathon.

“Someone get a towel.” Hakyeon says as he goes from candle to candle, reigniting them with a wave of his fingers. It’s the only magic he trusts himself to do. “He looks more like a drowned rat than a cat.”

“How did he get onto our windowsill?” Jaehwan asks as Wonshik disappears in the direction of the bathroom. “We’re six flights up and there’s no fire escape on this side of the building.”

“He must have scaled the wall.” Hongbin says, his voice holding a certain amount of begrudging respect.

“My hero.” Sanghyuk says and he doesn’t even sound like he’s being sarcastic.

Wonshik returns then and Taekwoon doesn’t fight him when he bundles him into the towel and cradles him in his arms like one big, furry baby.

“He looks like a mean burrito.” Jaehwan says, tickling under his chin. “I love it.”

Taekwoon lets out a small, tired meow.

“Pass him here.” Hakyeon says and he doesn’t wait for Wonshik to move before he snatches the cat burrito and cradles him to his chest. “Where did you go, Taekwoon? We’ve been looking for you for hours.”

Taekwoon side eyes the television, the movie still on pause, and twitches his whiskers.

“We did!” Hakyeon protests.

“We made posters and everything.” Hongbin agrees.

“We wanted to call the police but Hakyeon wouldn’t let us.” Sanghyuk adds.

Hakyeon hits him, “you-!”

“How can we help you change back?” Wonshik asks, his face pulled into a frown. “You’ve been stuck for too long. The rota is going to change soon and you didn’t clean the bathroom before you shifted. I don’t want to have to deal with that disaster.”

Taekwoon narrows his eyes.

“Maybe we should call his mom.” Hongbin says.

Hakyeon perks up, “that’s a really good idea! Why didn’t we think of that before?”

“I thought about it.” Jaehwan shrugs.

“Then why didn’t you-.”

“Call her now.” Sanghyuk interrupts. “Maybe she can stop by tomorrow morning. The bathroom really does need cleaning.”

“What do you mean ‘call her’?” Hakyeon arches an eyebrow.

Sanghyuk rolls his eyes, “come on, we all know you’ve got our moms on speed dial.”

“That’s not true.” Hakyeon shakes his head and rocks a now wiggling Taekwoon. “Your mom? Yes. Wonshik and Jaehwan’s? Oh, definitely. I don’t call Hongbin’s mom enough to keep her on speed dial.”

“Because he’s a nerd.” Jaehwan mutters under his breath.

Hakyeon ignores him, “But Taekwoon’s mom? His sisters? They’re the holy grail. Do you know how long I’ve been trying to-?”

Taekwoon’s wiggles become too much then and Hakyeon gets a soggy paw in the mouth as he makes his escape.

Taekwoon lets out long, high pitched meows as he heads in the direction of the bedrooms. The others watch him go and Hakyeon shakes his head as he pulls a hair from his mouth. Taekwoon always sheds like crazy in his cat form.

“Do you think he wants us to follow him?” Hongbin asks.

“Maybe.” Jaehwan shrugs though none of them move.

They wait until Taekwoon comes back and starts clawing at their legs before they decide that he does, in fact, want them to follow him and he hadn’t just been making a dramatic exit. Taekwoon leads them to his room and to a particular pair of jeans in the pile of dirty laundry on the floor. He paws at one of the pockets, yowling loud enough to make them all wince, and Hongbin crouches down to investigate.

“His phone.” He says once he’s pulled it free from the pocket. “It’s dead though.”

He plugs it in to charge and they all sit around on their own phones while Taekwoon paces the room, looking tense. They give it half an hour before attempting to turn it on.

“Taekwoon…” Hakyeon says once the phone has turned it on.

“Fingerprint recognition?” Sanghyuk rolls his eyes. “You’re an idiot. Why couldn’t you have a pin like the rest of us?”

Taekwoon lets out a pitiful meow and collapses onto the floor.

“That may be my fault.” Hakyeon admits. “He might have been forced to change it after I-.”

“We could try magic.” Wonshik suggests.

Hongbin wiggles his fingers at the phone and the screen immediately cracks.

“Oops.” He says.

Taekwoon’s meow is long and mournful.

“Maybe if I-.” Wonshik says with a wave of his hand and the phone promptly bursts into flames.

They don’t quite manage to put the fire out before the alarm starts blaring and Hakyeon tucks a despondent Taekwoon into his raincoat as they trudge out into the storm with the rest of the building’s occupants. Some of them are grumbling quite murderously so Hakyeon suggests that they walk the block, huddled together under one of Hongbin’s giant umbrellas, until they’re given the all clear to go back into the building.

“It wasn’t even that big of a fire.” Wonshik complains when they’re halfway through their third circuit of the block.

“There were scorch marks on the ceiling.” Hongbin rolls his eyes and Sanghyuk pushes Wonshik into the next puddle they pass.

The next couple of days go by as normally as they ever do. Hakyeon goes to class and he goes to dance practice and he hangs around in the apartment with the others but none of it feels right, not when Taekwoon still hasn’t changed back. He’s worried that there’s something seriously wrong but he doesn’t know how to fix it. The others are not much help. Hongbin complains about the furballs that litter the apartment and Wonshik holes himself up in his room to work on trying to fix the charred remains of Taekwoon’s phone but that leads to nothing more than the building getting evacuated another four times. Sanghyuk spends a lot of time in Taekwoon’s room, measuring tape in hand, and Hakyeon sees him browsing for new bedroom furniture on his phone on more than one occasion. There’s only Jaehwan that really spends any time with Taekwoon and that’s only so he can dress him up in the cute little hats and bowties that arrive in the mail on a daily basis. That Taekwoon doesn’t try to resist Jaehwan’s dress up sessions at all, just sits as Jaehwan coos over him and takes a hundred pictures, has Hakyeon sick with worry. He seen Jaehwan get scratched for a lot less.

But Taekwoon doesn’t _do_ much of anything, if Hakyeon’s being honest. He doesn’t meow at them any more or knock their things onto the floor. He doesn’t even resist when Hakyeon picks up the habit of carrying him around like a baby whenever he’s puttering around in the kitchen or going through his evening routine. He mostly just lays on the floor or on the coffee table, not asleep but not doing anything else either.

“His body is probably shutting down.” Sanghyuk says when Hakyeon brings it up. “When was the last time he had any coffee?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Jaehwan smiles brightly at them. “I put some in a saucer for him the other day.”

“I don’t… That can’t be good for him.” Hongbin says.

“No more coffee.” Hakyeon agrees.

“He’s not eating the tuna I bought him.” Wonshik says with a frown. “I keep putting it out but he never touches it and I end up having to throw it out. It’s expensive.”

“We need to find a way to change him back.” Hakyeon tells them. “He’s… Just look at him.”

As one, the five of them look in the direction of the bedrooms and the mass of fluff sprawled in the hallway.

“He was there when I got up this morning.” Hakyeon says and the others nod. They’d all tripped over him at one point or another during the day. “It can’t go on like this.”

“Is he even still alive?” Hongbin asks.

Taekwoon meows.

“Okay, noted, still alive.”

Hakyeon rolls his eyes at Sanghyuk, “don’t look so disappointed.”

“I have it all planned out, I’m going to move the bed to-.”

Taekwoon meows again, more pitifully this time.

“Why don’t we take him into school? Won’t one of his lecturers be able to help? From his magic classes?” Wonshik asks.

Hakyeon perks up, “that’s a really good idea.”

It’s still fairly early as most of them had only had morning classes that day and Jaehwan, for whatever reason, had decided to skip his afternoon seminar so they pull on their shoes and their jackets and Hakyeon scoops Taekwoon up from the floor and they set off for college.

The magic block is on the other side of campus to where Hakyeon has most of his classes and none of the others really know where to go once they’re there so they rely on the flicks of Taekwoon’s tail to lead them in the right direction. Hakyeon is concerned that he doesn’t seem as enthusiastic about this as the rest of them.

“We’ll fix this.” Hakyeon promises him, thinking that perhaps Taekwoon feels resigned to being stuck like this forever. “You’ll be back to normal in no time.”

There’s a lecture in progress in the room that Taekwoon leads them to and they hover outside the door for the best part of twenty minutes, Hongbin and Sanghyuk complaining bitterly the whole time, before the class ends and students stream past them and out into the hallway.

The lecturer, a short man in his early forties, gulps nervously as the five of him approach him. He offers them a timid smile before concentrating on packing away his papers.

“Can I help you?” He asks.

“We think our friend-.”

“Not friend.” Sanghyuk cuts in.

“More acquaintance, really.” Hongbin quickly agrees.

“-Is in your class.” Hakyeon continues on unperturbed. “Jung Taekwoon? Tall, broad shoulders-.”

“Mean face.” Jaehwan finishes.

“Ah, yes, I know Taekwoon.” The lecturer nods, he eyes the cat in Hakyeon’s arms. “I’m guessing this is him?”

Taekwoon meows.

“He’s been stuck like this for nearly two weeks now.” Hakyeon tells him. “We don’t know what to do. None of us are really any good at magic – don’t make that face at me Wonshik, you’ve nearly burned the apartment down five times in the last couple of days, you are not good at magic – and we don’t know how to help him back to his human form. He’s never had a problem with switching back and forth before.”

“I’ve always suspected he was felidae- he makes me a little nervous. I’m rodentia, you see.” The lecturer explains, his nose twitching. “Is this his primary feline form?”

Hakyeon looks at the others and gets a couple of shrugs in return, “it’s the one we see him in most often? Our apartment isn’t really big enough for him to be a tiger or whatever his primary form is full time.”

Taekwoon suddenly bites Hakyeon’s hand and Hakyeon immediately drops him.

“What was that for?” He asks, examining his hand as Taekwoon jumps up onto the lecturer’s desk.

“Maybe you insulted him?” Wonshik suggests.

“How?” Hakyeon asks.

He’s ignored.

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Hongbin asks.

The lecturer frowns, his hand hovering an inch or so above Taekwoon’s head, “it’s very odd. It feels like… I don’t think it’s his magic that’s doing this.”

Hakyeon’s eyebrows shoot up in shock, “but there’s not much magic out there that’s strong enough to mess with a shifter’s magic?”

Hakyeon remembers that much from high school.

“No.” The lecturer agrees. “But there’s definitely something there- something that isn’t allowing him to shift forms.”

“Someone’s cursed him, haven’t they?” Jaehwan asks.

Sanghyuk brightens, “maybe it’s permanent.”

“You’re not having his room.” Hakyeon tells him.

“May I?” The lecturer asks and he must take the slow blink Taekwoon gives him as agreement because he starts sniffing at him, from his ears right down to the tip of his tail.

“This feels kind of inappropriate.” Wonshik says.

“Each person’s magic has a distinctive smell.” The lecturer explains with a blush. “I’m trying to work out-.”

He smells at the air and then takes a couple of faltering steps before zeroing in on Jaehwan.

“It’s your magic.”

“What?” Jaehwan squawks. “How? I’ve failed every magic class I’ve ever attended.”

Hongbin nods solemnly, having grown up next door to Jaehwan and attended all the same schools, “even the ones where that weren’t graded.”

“This type of magic, I don’t think… It’s not a spell, or at least not an orthodox one.”

 “Then what is it?” Hakyeon asks.

Taekwoon is growling now, his fur all fluffed up, his claws unsheathed. He leaps in Jaehwan’s direction but Hakyeon, rather heroically in his own opinion, grabs him mid-air and holds him tight against his chest even as he continues to struggle.

“I’ve always thought he was cute as a cat.” Jaehwan inches behind Wonshik, gripping his sleeve, anxious eyes fixed on Taekwoon. “But I don’t think- I haven’t done anything. I mean, I might have caught him napping on the windowsill the other week and wished he’d stay a cat forever but that’s it, I promise! I didn’t put a spell on him!”

“Accidental magic.” The lecturer nods. “That makes sense, I’ve not seen anything like this before.”

Wonshik tries to shake Jaehwan off, “how does he turn him back?”

“Does he have to turn him back?” Sanghyuk asks.

“Yes!” Hakyeon loses his hold on Taekwoon and he drops onto the floor.

“Save me!” Jaehwan pleads and he shoves Wonshik in Taekwoon’s direction before, rather foolishly, sprinting further into the room instead of out of the door they had entered through. Taekwoon is hot on his heels.

“Maybe they’ll take each other out.” Hongbin says, watching on with a raised eyebrow. “And then we can both get new rooms.”

“I like your thinking.” Sanghyuk nods.

“I’m sorry!” Jaehwan shouts as he reaches the back of the room and realises his mistake. “I’m sorry, I don’t really want you to be a cat forever! I want you to be able to change back to being human- I do, I swear!”

“He’s going to kill him.” Hakyeon mutters but he doesn’t move to help.

Taekwoon continues to growl and readies himself to pounce.

“You can turn back!” Jaehwan’s voice is shrill. “I release you from whatever spell I’ve put on you! Just, please, don’t kill me! I’m too beautiful to die!”

Taekwoon jumps and, as he does, his body begins to twist and grow. His fur lightens and his growls deepen and it is a lion and not a housecat that knocks a screaming Jaehwan to floor.

“He’s going to kill him.” Hakyeon repeats and this time he’s genuinely worried.

Taekwoon roars as Hakyeon and the others race in their direction, none of them quite ready to let Jaehwan be murdered right in front of them, but it isn’t a lion pinning Jaehwan to the floor by the time they reach the back of the room.

“That wasn’t coffee!” Taekwoon shouts, the front of Jaehwan’s jacket bunched in his fists. “It was disgusting! Were you trying to kill me?”

“You looked sleepy so I mixed in some energy drink!” Jaehwan shouts straight back. “The internet said it was okay!”

“Taekwoon!”

Taekwoon looks up at all them and, apart from looking maybe a little paler and thinner than he had the last time they’d seen him in his human form, Hakyeon is relieved to see he looks okay.

He narrows his eyes at them, “I’m mad at all of you.”

He gives Jaehwan one last shake before pushing himself to his feet. He leans back against the wall instead of taking any wobbly steps. Hakyeon thinks it’ll take him a couple of minutes to get used to having only two legs again after spending so long with four.

“Why are you mad at all of us? It was Jaehwan who-.”

Taekwoon cuts Hongbin off, “you broke my phone.”

“Wonshik was the one who set it on fire.” Hongbin rolls his eyes. “We could have fixed what I did.”

“How can you be mad at me?” Sanghyuk asks. “I’ve been the picture of innocence throughout.”

“I saw you with the tape measure in my room.” Taekwoon says.

“And me?” Hakyeon asks.

Taekwoon sniffs, “a tiger? Really?”

“What?”

“You know how I feel about tigers.”

The lecturer, still stood by his desk, clears his throat and jerks his head at the crowd of students gathered at the doorway, all of them watching the scene unfold with curious expressions.

“There’s another class in here now.” He says.

Hakyeon sees Taekwoon’s cheeks flush red, eyes drifting down to the pyjamas he’s wearing, before he shifts back into the form of the lion.

“I’m glad he got stuck as a cat.” Wonshik mutters as Taekwoon parts the crowd of students. “Can you imagine trying to share the sofa with that thing?”

“Or how much it sheds?” Hongbin asks with a pained grimace.

Hakyeon nods. It really doesn’t bear thinking about.

Still, he’s glad that Taekwoon is back to normal, even if that means he’s angry. Hakyeon isn’t an idiot. He doesn’t hold any illusions about how long Taekwoon can and will be angry for but he does hope that he’ll be forgiven in the next couple of days. Maybe.

The others though? He really doesn’t care how long Taekwoon is angry at them for. Hakyeon thinks he might even be able to fan the flames, telling Taekwoon stories of what they’d said and done while he was out of earshot. No, Hakyeon thinks to himself, it’s the least he can do after all the shit they’ve put him through the last couple of weeks.

They deserve whatever they get.


End file.
